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The numero sign or numero symbol, №, (also represented as Nº, No, No. or no.), is a
typographic Typography is the art and technique of typesetting, arranging type to make written language legibility, legible, readability, readable and beauty, appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, Point (typogra ...
abbreviation of the word ''number''(''s'') indicating ordinal numeration, especially in names and titles. For example, using the numero sign, the written long-form of the address is shortened to , yet both forms are spoken long. Typographically, the numero sign combines as a single
ligature Ligature may refer to: * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure ** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry * Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...
the uppercase Latin letter with a usually superscript lowercase letter , sometimes underlined, resembling the masculine
ordinal indicator In written languages, an ordinal indicator is a character, or group of characters, following a numeral denoting that it is an ordinal number, rather than a cardinal number. In English orthography, this corresponds to the suffixes ''-st'', ''- ...
. The ligature has a
code point In character encoding terminology, a code point, codepoint or code position is a numerical value that maps to a specific character. Code points usually represent a single grapheme—usually a letter, digit, punctuation mark, or whitespace—but ...
in
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
as a
precomposed character A precomposed character (alternatively composite character or decomposable character) is a Unicode entity that can also be defined as a sequence of one or more other characters. A precomposed character may typically represent a letter with a diacri ...
, . The ''
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a co ...
'' derives the numero sign from
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, the
ablative In grammar, the ablative case (pronounced ; sometimes abbreviated ) is a grammatical case for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives in the grammars of various languages; it is sometimes used to express motion away from something, among other uses. ...
form of ("number", with the ablative denotations of "by the number, with the number"). In
Romance languages The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
, the numero sign is understood as an abbreviation of the word for "number", e.g. Italian , French , and Portuguese and Spanish'' ''. This article describes other typographical abbreviations for "number" in different languages, in addition to the numero sign proper.


Usages

The numero sign as a single glyph, despite its widespread usage internationally, is not a standard keyboard symbol in virtually any European language. Its substitution by the two separate letters and is common. A capital or lower-case "n" may be used, followed by "o.", superscript "o", ordinal indicator, or the degree sign; this will be understood in most languages.


Bulgarian

In Bulgarian the numero sign is often used and it is present in three widely used keyboard layouts accessible with in BDS and prBDS and with on the Phonetic layout.


English

In English, the non-ligature form is typical and is often used to abbreviate the word "number". In North America, the
number sign The symbol is known variously in English-speaking regions as the number sign, hash, or pound sign. The symbol has historically been used for a wide range of purposes including the designation of an ordinal number and as a ligatured abbreviati ...
, , is more prevalent. The ligature form does not appear on British or American QWERTY keyboards.


French

The numero symbol is not in common use in France and does not appear on a standard
AZERTY AZERTY () is a specific layout for the characters of the Latin alphabet on typewriter keys and computer keyboards. The layout takes its name from the first six letters to appear on the first row of alphabetical keys; that is, ( ). Similar t ...
keyboard. Instead, the French
Imprimerie nationale The Imprimerie nationale (), known also as IN Groupe brand, is a company specialized in the production of secure documents, such as identity cards and passports, and a supplier of public utility identification applications. Owned by the French st ...
recommends the use of the form "no" (an "n" followed by a superscript lowercase "o"). The plural form "nos" can also be used. In practice, the "o" is often replaced by the
degree symbol The degree symbol or degree sign, , is a typographical symbol that is used, among other things, to represent degrees of arc (e.g. in geographic coordinate systems), hours (in the medical field), degrees of temperature or alcohol proof. The sym ...
(°), which is visually similar to the superscript "o" and is easily accessible on an AZERTY keyboard.


Indonesian and Malaysian

"Nomor" in Indonesian and "nombor" in Malaysian; therefore "No." is commonly used as an abbreviation with standard spelling and full stop.


Italian

The sign is usually replaced with the abbreviations "n." or "nº", the latter using a
masculine ordinal indicator In written languages, an ordinal indicator is a character, or group of characters, following a numeral denoting that it is an ordinal number, rather than a cardinal number. In English orthography, this corresponds to the suffixes ''-st'', ''- ...
, rather than a superscript "O".


Philippines

Because of more than three centuries of Spanish colonisation, the word ''número'' is found in almost all Philippine languages. "No." is its common notation in local languages as well as English.


Portuguese

In Portugal the notation "n.º" is often used, as in Spain. In Brazil, where Portuguese is the official language, "nº" is often used on official documents.


Russian

Although the letter is not in the
Cyrillic alphabet , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = Gr ...
, the numero sign is typeset in Russian publishing, and is available on Russian computer and typewriter keyboards. File:Fox Typewriter 24 with Russian layout.JPG, 1912 typewriter with Russian layout.
sign can be seen on the key. File:Машинка Любава ПП-305-01 клавиатура.JPG, Russian typewriter, circa 1985.
sign can be seen on the key. File:KB Russian.svg, Russian
keyboard layout A keyboard layout is any specific physical, visual or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key-meaning associations (respectively) of a computer keyboard, mobile phone, or other computer-controlled typographic keyboard. is the actua ...
for
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...
.
The sign can be seen on the key.
The numero sign is very widely used in Russia and other
post-Soviet states The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...
in many official and casual contexts. Examples include usage for law and other official documents numbering, names of institutions (hospitals, kindergartens, schools, libraries, organization departments and so on), numbering of periodical publications (such as newspapers and magazines), numbering of public transport routes, etc. "№ п/п" (', "sequential number") is universally used as a table header to denote a column containing the table row number. The № sign is sometimes used in Russian
medical prescription A prescription, often abbreviated or Rx, is a formal communication from a physician or other registered health-care professional to a pharmacist, authorizing them to dispense a specific prescription drug for a specific patient. Historicall ...
s (which according to the law must be written in
Latin language Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of t ...
) as an abbreviation for the Latin word ''numero'' to indicate the number of prescribed dosages (for example, tablets or capsules), and on the price tags in drugstores and pharmacy websites to indicate number of
unit dose Dosage forms (also called unit doses) are medication, pharmaceutical drug products in the form in which they are marketed for use, with a specific mixture of active ingredients and inactive components (excipients), in a particular configuration (su ...
s in drug packages, although the standard abbreviation for use in prescriptions is the Latin


Spanish

The numero sign is not typically used in Iberian Spanish, and it is not present on standard keyboard layouts. According to the Real Academia Española and the Fundéu BBVA, the word ''número'' (number) is abbreviated per the Spanish typographic convention of ''letras voladas'' ("flying letters"). The first letter(s) of the word to be abbreviated are followed by a period; then, the final letter(s) of the word are written as lowercase superscripts. This gives the abbreviations n.o (singular) and n.os (plural). The abbreviation "no." is not used, because it might be mistaken for the Spanish word ''no'' (no, not). Furthermore, nro. and núm. are also acceptable abbreviations for ''número''. The numero sign either as a one-character symbol (№) or composed of the letter N plus the superscript "o" character (sometimes underlined or substituted by ordinal indicator º) is common in Latin America, where the interpolated period is sometimes not used in abbreviations.


Nr.

In some languages, ''Nr.'', ''nr.'', ''nr'' or ''NR'' is used instead, reflecting the abbreviation of the language's word for "number". German ' is represented this way, and this language capitalises all nouns and abbreviations of nouns. Lithuanian uses it as well, and it is usually capitalised in
bureaucratic The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...
contexts, especially with the meaning "reference number" (such as ', "contract No.") but in other contexts it follows the usual sentence capitalisation (such as ''tel. nr.'', abbreviation for ', "telephone number"). It is most commonly lowercase in other languages, such as Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Estonian and Swedish. Some languages, such as Polish, omit the dot in abbreviations, if the last letter of the original word is present in the abbreviation.


Typing the symbol

On typewriters and computers that do not support this symbol, it is acceptable and commonplace to replace it with the trigraph "No." (letter "N", letter "o", and a period (full stop)). On typewriters and computers that support the degree symbol a digraph "N°" may be used. If the masculine
ordinal indicator In written languages, an ordinal indicator is a character, or group of characters, following a numeral denoting that it is an ordinal number, rather than a cardinal number. In English orthography, this corresponds to the suffixes ''-st'', ''- ...
is available, the better digraph "Nº" may be used. These result in a passable approximation of the numero sign, but a consistent notation must be used in digital data which must be searchable. On Russian computer keyboard layout, the № character is available and often located on the key. In
macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
, the character can be typed using "U.S. Extended" and "Irish Extended" keyboard layouts by typing . As of macOS 10.13, this combination does not yield the numero symbol when "U.S." or "U.S. International" is chosen. It will only yield the numero symbol when "ABC – Extended" is chosen as the input keyboard. In
X11 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...
(and related, like Linux) systems with a compose key, the character can be typed using , , . Alternatively standard XIM style can be used: then . In Microsoft Windows and
HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaSc ...
in general, the numero sign can be entered by the
Unicode input Unicode input is the insertion of a specific Unicode character on a computer by a user; it is a common way to input characters not directly supported by a physical keyboard. Unicode characters can be produced either by selecting them from a di ...
methods № or №.


Technical considerations


See also

*
Superior letter In typography and handwriting, a superior letter is a lower-case letter placed above the baseline and made smaller than ordinary script. The style has traditionally been distinct from superscript. Formerly quite common in abbreviations, the orig ...


References


External links


Unicode Letterlike Symbols code chart
{{DEFAULTSORT:Numero Sign Typographical symbols Numbers